Could the time to end federal aid to higher education have long passed? “The federal government has no constitutional authority to do anything with regard to higher education (or any level, for that matter),” George Leef writes in Forbes. “But in 1965, Congress was swarming with ‘progressives’ who were sure that because college seemed to be a good thing for the rather small percentage of Americans who went, the nation would benefit if almost everyone went.” “So the federal policy began to make higher education more ‘accessible’ for students, most significantly through grants and easily available loans. The result was...

(CNSNews.com) - Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says government funded universal preschool is a “social movement” and compared it to civil rights and gay marriage during a speech in Los Angeles last month. “At the end of the day for me this is really a social movement,” Duncan said when discussing federally subsidized preschool at the LA Universal Preschool (LAUP) forum on Oct. 21. “If you look at social movements, we all celebrate what happened in the 1960’s. The civil rights movement was extraordinarily powerful, life transforming, earth shattering. But the question I have is, why didn’t the civil rights...

No Koch Bros wanted at B.C. Brooklyn College, part of the disastrous and dysfunctional City University of New York sinkhole, has a $60 million endowment. A drop in the bucket compared to CUNYâ€™s horrifying $3 billion budget.46% of its wildly inflated budget comes from New York State. New York City taxpayers kick in another 10%.With so much taxpayer money, involuntarily extracted, they just arenâ€™t in need of any dirty Koch Brothers cash. Brooklyn CollegeÂ’s liberal politics are keeping grants and progress from faculty and students, one frustrated CUNY professor told the Observer.The CUNY college has turned down a $10 million...

* The Facebook founder pledged $100million to Newark schools in 2010 to bring sweeping educational reforms * However, most of the money has been spent on labor contracts and consulting fees * The money has had little impact on student performance so far In his first major show of philanthropy, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made a splash by announcing his plan to give $100 million to help turn around Newark, New Jersey's public schools in an appearance on Oprah in 2010. But nearly four years later, Zuckerberg's money has run out, having been spent mostly on labor contracts and consulting...

The Obama Administration’s former Homeland Security Chief has taken over the University of California. “Janet Napolitano had zero experience leading a college before she became president of the University of California last year,” Eric Kelderman wrote in The Chonicle of Higher Education on February 21, 2014. “Yet after just four months on the job, Ms. Napolitano, 56, has outlined major goals for the system, including a reconsideration of tuition policies, improving cooperation with the other two higher-education systems in the state, ensuring the prominent role of research and graduate education, and making the campuses carbon-neutral by 2025.” “She even has...

In some cash-strapped Chicago schools, no resource can be taken for granted -- not even toilet paper. Nicholas Sposato, alderman of Chicago’s 36th ward, recently held a toilet paper drive for the schools in his community.

Could public colleges be free? Yes, says the head of the union for University of California’s 4,000 instructors and librarians. How? Trim non-essential functions, redirect a bunch of money and end tax breaks that mostly benefit wealthy college-goers’ families, argues University Council-American Federation of Teachers President Bob Samuels. . . . “The major stumbling block is people no longer believe in large government programs.” (Excerpt) Read More at InsideHigherEd.com...

DES MOINES – Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday he was raising “a cautionary flag” about over-building at university campuses at a time when more learning is going online when he vetoed planning money for big-ticket capital projects at state college campuses last week. With college credits increasingly available through Internet-based options, the governor said he did not think it was wise to charge into a new wave of building projects at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa State University in Ames and the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls without first embarking on a comprehensive, long-range look...

Dear Carrie, I have a 3-year old daughter who I hope will go to college one day. Given the increasing costs, what's the best way for me to save? I've opened a 529 plan, but is there anything else I can do? --A Reader Dear Reader, The first thing you can do is to give yourself credit for starting to save so early. While saving for a child's college education is an enormous challenge, making it a priority when it's so far away can be the first big hurdle. So you're off to a good start. As someone who believes...

Jim Crow may be dead in most of America — but not at Columbia University. Almost 50 years after the Civil Rights Act ended legal discrimination, the bastion of liberalism is finally trying to change one of its scholarships, which is restricted to “whites only.” The Ivy League school’s Lydia C. Roberts Graduate Fellowship stipulates that the funds be given only to “a person of the Caucasian race.”

Summer break has started very early for kids in one Michigan school district. Buena Vista schools have been closed for five days already, and on Monday, the district's website stated that the school would be closed until further notice. For good reason, this decision has parents, and the community, up in arms. The problem in Buena Vista is that the school district, educating approximately 450 kids, is out of money. All the teachers have been laid off and a financial emergency has been declared. The district has suffered from declining enrollment, which, in turn, has led to a loss of...

It's no secret that falling behind on student loan payments can squash a borrower's hopes of building savings, buying a home or even finding work. Now, thousands of retirees are learning that defaulting on student-debt can threaten something that used to be untouchable: their Social Security benefits.

I noticed this one from a few days ago. The full text is available of course at the link, but here's a few highlights I got from a scan of the verbiage: Section 2a: There is hereby established the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans (The Initiative), to be housed in the Department of Education (The Department). There shall be an Executive Director of the Initiative, to be appointed by the Secretary of Education (The Secretary). The Initiative shall be supported by the Interagency Working Group established under subsection (c) of this section and advised by the...

A mother of four who was laid off in 2008, Danielle Torno had planned on turning her life around next year with the help of a Cal State East Bay business degree. Instead, the 36-year-old San Jose resident will be searching for another solution because of a little-noticed congressional decision to reduce or eliminate Pell Grants for hundreds of thousands of the poorest college students. The changes take effect July 1, and students like Torno will bear the brunt of the reforms, which are expected to save $11 billion over 10 years. Among those who will lose Pell Grants in...

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana will be home to one of the nation’s largest school voucher programs once Gov. Bobby Jindal signs legislation that recently passed his state’s legislature. Today, by a vote of 60-42, the Louisiana House of Representatives approved Gov. Jindal’s voucher expansion, which passed the Senate last night 24-15. “This is a momentous day for the families of Louisiana,” State Superintendent of Education John White said. “All students deserve a fair chance in life, and that begins with the opportunity to attend a high-quality school. These policy changes are aligned with that central belief, and Gov. Jindal and...

Instead of saving up for their sons' college education, Bill Dunham and his wife are taking out loans for high school. Their eldest son will begin ninth grade at a school in Boston where annual tuition runs around $10,000 -- and they already pay $5,000 a year for their younger child. A project manager for a mechanical construction company, Dunham says the schools referred him to lenders who specialize in pre-college education loans. He's taking a loan to cover his son's full high school tuition, which he plans to repay over two years. "If we had the money, we'd pay...

Financial aid, whether it's a cheap loan, a work-study job at the campus library, or a grant, is supposed to make college more affordable and accessible for students. But what if, by handing money out to undergrads, the government is simply encouraging schools to spend more and jack up tuition? Meet "the Bennett hypothesis," the dismal notion named for Reagan Education Secretary William Bennett, who suggested it in a 1987 New York Times op-ed diplomatically titled "Our Greedy Colleges." Generous student-aid policies had "enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that Federal loan subsidies would help cushion...

As of Tuesday, programs like elementary music, art and physical education are gone and libraries are closed. School days are shortened to just 5 1/2 hours -- leaving kids less time for instruction, and working parents scrambling. "What are kids gonna do with that big window of time when their parents are still working and all that idle time that they still have, to do God knows what?" parent Jeff Bodziony said. Hot school lunches are also thing of the past. In fact, lunch is a thing of the past. Students used to have lunch in the noon hour. Instead...

DENVER -- A Denver judge ruled Friday that Colorado's education funding system is "irrational and inadequate" and violates the state's constitution -- a decision that's a victory for school districts and parents who sued but hardly the end of a years-long debate.

A number of student organizers in the US have unveiled what they call an 'Occupy Student Debt' campaign, urging borrowers across the country to default on their college loans. The campaign was made public Monday afternoon in New York's Zuccotti Park, where the national Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement emerged, the Huffington Post reported. “Since the first days of the Occupy movement, the agony of student debt has been a constant refrain,” said Andrew Ross, a professor at New York University and an active OWS member, while addressing a crowd in the park “We've heard the harrowing personal testimony...

Ben Barnhard finally had reason to be optimistic this summer: The 13-year-old shed more than 100 pounds at a rigorous weight-loss academy, a proud achievement for a boy who had endured classmates' taunts about his obesity and who had sought solace in the quiet of his bedroom, with his pet black cat and the intricate origami designs he created. But one month before school was to start for the special-needs teen, his mother, psychiatrist Margaret Jensvold, shot him in the head, then killed herself. Officers found their bodies Tuesday in the bedrooms of their home in Kensington, Md., an upper-middle...

College is a scam — so let’s make money off it Commentary: Debt creates generation of indentured servants By James Altucher NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — We can’t deny it anymore: College is a scam and a bubble — and the reasons why appear below. But I’ll be the first to admit it’s going to take years for that bubble to burst. And while college tuitions are still skyrocketing and student-loan debt is creating a generation of indentured servants, we might as well benefit from it. Many stocks will continue to go up from the multidecade college bubble, even as it...

As the new Republican House majority wrestles with ways to cut our unsustainable budget deficit, Barack Obama threw down the gauntlet. On March 14, he said, "We cannot cut education." But why not? If we are going to cut programs that are proven to have failed to achieve their goals, federal spending on education should be at the top of the list. Federal spending on public schools (which is only a small percentage of their school budgets) was given specific goals in the 2002 law called "No Child Left Behind," the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It...

As you read this, there are over 18 million students enrolled at the nearly 5,000 colleges and universities currently in operation across the United States. Many of these institutions of higher learning are now charging $20,000, $30,000 or even $40,000 a year for tuition and fees. That does not even count living expenses. Today it is 400% more expensive to go to college in the United States than it was just 30 years ago. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facts-about-student-loan-debt-2010-12##ixzz19C0sagpR

Kindergarten teacher Marisa Martinez was tired of political promises, unfulfilled vows to restore California classrooms to their former glory. She despaired as she saw her beloved art and music disappear from the schools as money dried up, leaving teachers scrambling for pencils and paper. To Martinez, 41, paintbrushes and pianos weren't luxuries; they were necessities. A professional musician as well as an educator at San Francisco's El Dorado Elementary School, she decided to take things into her own hands. With her own money, she created a CD of songs she sings to her predominantly low-income students, tunes with a bluegrass,...

Nonprofits have long used the honor roll, a list of benefactors prominently displayed, to inspire others to make gifts. In the last school year, seniors at Dartmouth College and Cornell University turned that tactic on its head, creating a sort of dishonor roll of peers who failed to donate to the class gift. At Dartmouth, the lone student in the graduating class who held out, Laura A. DeLorenzo, was excoriated in the student newspaper and on The Little Green Blog, a student Web site, which also ran her picture. Raising the stakes for the student fund-raisers was the potential of...

UC Berkeley’s recent elimination of popular sports programs highlighted endemic problems in the university’s management. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s eight-year fiscal track record is dismal indeed. He would like to blame the politicians in Sacramento, since they stopped giving him every dollar he has asked for, and the state legislators do share some responsibility for the financial crisis. But not in the sense he means. A competent chancellor would have been on top of identifying inefficiencies in the system and then crafting a plan to fix them. Compentent oversight by the Board of Regents and the legislature would have required him...

Recently, President Obama has been urging Congress to pass legislation that will provide $50 billion in aid to the states to fill budget gaps related to education/teachers, health care, and emergency personnel such as police and firefighters. Specifically, the legislation includes “$23 billion to help prevent teacher layoffs, $25 billion for state health care aid and $2 billion for cops and firefighters.”

Teachers' seniority rights are under fire from public officials and policy experts who say experience and effectiveness don't always go hand in hand. The grip seniority holds on schools has gained attention as money runs short and education leaders, including Cleveland's, slash jobs by the hundreds. Its effects also come into play as urban school districts wrestle with how to place the right teachers in schools serving low-income, or so-called "hard to serve," populations. Cleveland schools Chief Executive Eugene Sanders has acknowledged a desire to dismantle the district's seniority system as part of difficult contract negotiations going on now. Union...

TEANECK, N.J. (CBS) â€• Click to enlarge1 of 1 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie accuses a local district of sending information back home to ask how parents will vote on school budgets. After months of heated debate and angry protests, New Jersey residents woke up Wednesday morning to see that a majority of the proposed school budgets were defeated Tuesday night. In one of those towns Â– Teaneck Â– several hundred students held a protest on the high school track. The New Jersey school budget vote will likely be remembered for Governor Chris Christie's deep involvement in the debate, and...

Ronald Reagan said it best. "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" I was reflecting on this quote in light of Washington's plan, as part of "health-care reform," to nationalize all college loans. This is an aspect of the legislation that hasn't received nearly as much attention as it deserves, because it's one of those seemingly innocuous, do-gooder notions that most people just don't understand. Why would a government deeply, hopelessly in debt seek a monopoly on college loans? Obviously, Washington under the rulership of Barack Obama, Nancy...

Gov. Chris Christie is making good on his promise to get tough with New Jersey's $2.2 billion budget gap -- by taking aim at one of the drivers of the state's out-of-control taxes: school budgets. Under Christie's budget, New Jersey's 605 school districts will see their state aid reduced by 5 percent of their last budget. That trims state spending by $820 million, forcing school districts to make deeper cuts or raise property taxes. If it stopped there, Christie's one-time aid cut would do nothing but aggravate property-tax payers. But he's also seeking a constitutional amendment on the November ballot...

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that not only must the state provide a substantially equal educational opportunity to its youth in its free public elementary and secondary schools, but they must also get an education that will adequately prepare them for college or a job in the real world. ... It's not student to teacher ratios, it's not overall enrollment, it's not computers in the classroom, or dollars spent per student ... it's the median income of residents in the school district. It is the hopes and aspirations of the parents, and the drive to get into a good college...

The Connecticut Supreme Court today at 11:30 a.m. is releasing a long-awaited decision in an education-funding lawsuit brought to establish that children have a right to an "adequate" education, not merely a free and public education. The decision will be accompanied by two dissenting and concurring opinions, indicating a deeply divided court. The justices have been wrestling with this case since 2008. The suit was filed by the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, which maintains a web site with detailed background, arguments and relevant documents. The coalition's amended complaint can be read here. The plaintiffs call the case,...

MONTGOMERY (AP) — Alabama's prepaid college tuition plan appears unable to pay tuition beyond the fall semester of 2011 and still have enough money to provide refunds to the 44,000 participants, administrators said. For leaders of the Save Alabama PACT parents group, that creates the need for the Legislature to find a solution in the current legislative session. Patti Lambert of Decatur, the group's co-founder, said she would prefer a solution in the Statehouse rather than the courthouse, but members may have no choice but to join a handful of parents who have already sued the state to demand the...

While government leaders attempt to tackle budget deficits that are ballooning to historic proportions, 55% of Americans say the government does not spend enough money on public education. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 20% think the government spends too much on public education, while another 21% say the amount it spends is about right. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Democrats and 55% of voters not affiliated with either party say the government does not spend enough, a view shared by just 42% of Republicans. Among all voters, 45% believe it is more important for the government...

Fifteen states and the District of Columbia survived the first cut Thursday in the Obama administration's unprecedented $4 billion school reform contest. This Story 15 states, D.C. make first cut in Race to the Top school reform contest R.I. district may reverse firing of high school teachers See our Higher Ed page for college news & admission advice at washingtonpost.com/higher-ed Analysts pointed to some surprises among the finalists, including New York, Ohio and Kentucky. It was also notable that the most populous state, California, missed the cut even though the state's legislature approved a significant school-improvement plan. Federal officials say...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many teachers and educators across the United States are at risk of losing their jobs in the next few months, the country's education secretary told a meeting of the National Governors Association on Sunday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many teachers and educators across the United States are at risk of losing their jobs in the next few months, the country's education secretary told a meeting of the National Governors Association on Sunday. "I am very, very concerned about layoffs going into the next school year starting in September. Good superintendents are going to start sending out pink slips in March and April, like a month from now, as they start to plan for their budgets," said Arne Duncan, referring to the slips of paper included in some paychecks to notify a person of being fired....

By TERENCE CHEA SAN FRANCISCO – The nation's public schools are falling under severe financial stress as states slash education spending and drain federal stimulus money that staved off deep classroom cuts and widespread job losses. School districts have already suffered big budget cuts since the recession began two years ago, but experts say the cash crunch will get a lot worse as states run out of stimulus dollars. The result in many hard-hit districts: more teacher layoffs, larger class sizes, smaller paychecks, fewer electives and extracurricular activities, and decimated summer school programs. The situation is particularly ugly in California,...

The state's largest teachers union, which stood against Minnesota's application for millions in federal "Race to the Top" funding, plans a 10-week TV ad campaign to push the Legislature for more funding. Don't cut schools to balance the budget, Education Minnesota will say. But that plea leaves out important context, such as this from our side of the river: 1. During a deep recession, the union drives through $10 million worth of salary and benefit increases. 2. Which amounts to close to half of this year's operating deficit. 3. And then will be followed by TV ads urging the Legislature...

Central Pennsylvania school districts received millions of dollars in federal stimulus funding and were advised to use the money for one-time expenses, since it will last for only two years. But with the tight economy, many districts are using the money to fill gaps that otherwise may have had to be handled by cuts or tax increases. In addition to using the money for operating expenses, Harris said many districts are using the funding for small purchases rather than large-scale projects. Though districts were advised by federal officials on how to use the money, they were not restricted in its...

It happened at least once a year, every year. In a roomful of a dozen Harvard University financial officials, Jack Meyer, the hugely successful head of Harvard’s endowment, and Lawrence Summers, then the school’s president, would face off in a heated debate. The topic: cash and how the university was managing - or mismanaging - its basic operating funds. Through the first half of this decade, Meyer repeatedly warned Summers and other Harvard officials that the school was being too aggressive with billions of dollars in cash, according to people present for the discussions, investing almost all of it with...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Students aren't the only ones benefiting from the billions of new dollars Washington is spending on college aid for the poor. An Associated Press analysis shows surging proportions of both low-income students and the recently boosted government money that follows them are ending up at for-profit schools, from local career colleges to giant publicly traded chains such as the University of Phoenix, Kaplan and Devry.